Muppets Become Victims of Computerized Animation
Computerized animation may have made the intricate puppetry that went into the production of the Muppet characters as obsolete as hand-drawn animation, one of the original Muppet creators indicated today (Tuesday) in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. Promoting the latest Star Wars DVD, which went on sale today, Frank Oz, who created the Yoda character for the films and provided the voice, said that in the original films, operating the puppet involved “hard, sweaty, down-and-dirty work in the pit.” He disclosed that it took four people to operate Yoda. In Episodes I and II, however, Yoda was created by computer animators, and now, he said, “the actual puppet can’t work” in filmmaking any longer. “Those days have gone by — we’re in a digital age,” Oz told the Tribune. “That puppet would look archaic. But he’ll always have a place in my heart.”
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